The New Killer Instinct Gets It’s Turn As An Arcade Prop At MLG

We don’t bring up the MLG very often here, aka Major League Gaming, as they typically focus on console gaming. On occasion an arcade-related thing manages to sneak in and this time around it has to do with the upcoming Killer Instinct remake for the Xbox One game console. At a recent MLG event, the game made an appearing in something similar to a Taito Vewlix cabinet, which can be seen below. It looks like the control panel is a desktop that players can place their own arcade fighter sticks onto. (Link source: Digital Trends)

I don’t believe this is any indication of anyone planning on making an official arcade release out of the game, although it is a little strange that they decided to make this prop like a modern Japanese fighting game as opposed to an American cabinet of some kind since that is how the original two KI titles were released. Of course one problem is that finding a US or European company making an original arcade fighter title has become as easy as finding a coconut tree growing in the Antarctic*. So this example of KI above is certainly not the first time someone is using the arcade cabinet prop to promote an upcoming game release and it will not be the last either**. Of course given the problems Microsoft has created for itself with policies surrounding their Xbox One console, they are doing what they can to repair the damage so that “Xbox One” doesn’t indicate the total number of sales they will reach***.

*In fairness, both Namco and PentaVision Global are currently selling fighting games although as kits only in the US. Chinese company Sealy is selling Chaos Generation in both cabinet and kit form.

**Sega did this last year with Virtual Fighter 5 Final Showdown; Capcom did this plenty with Street Fighter IV

How am I wrong about it being a prop? That page you link to shows exactly that the only point of this is to make a marketing prop, not release an arcade version of the game to arcades. MS or Double Helix can say that they are all about recreating the arcade experience but it doesn’t matter when its ONE cabinet made just for them and to show off at special events. Which is the whole point of the criticism in the post! fighting games are constantly being used as such props, not as teasing actual releases that operators can buy, or that would be worth buying in the long run.

And “we’re” still beating on MS because their moves were so anti-consumer that it belies a near unbelievable contempt for your customers. This isn’t something you just go “my bad” and everyone walks away like nothing happened.

At this point, MS needs to *earn* my trust back, and doing a 180 on a series of grievous wrongs *that never should even been considered it was so contemptuous of its customers*, is merely a first, tiny, step in that process.

(You are aware these are also the people that knowingly sold you a flawed machine in the 360, right? That they rushed it out the door even though it was clearly under-engineered for heat tolerance, and you want us to give them the benefit of the doubt after that and the DRM debacle because you identify w/ Kevin Bacon’s most infamous scene in Animal House? Yeah, no thanks, I think I’ll take a firm wait and see and spare my ass the beating.)

I’ll make a joke about the PS4 or the WiiU if appropriate and I think of something. I’ll make one about Atari or Sega or whatever (how about, the industry is as bankrupt with ideas as Atari is right now, zing!). Just a little joke that I somehow doubt will affect the outcome of the eternal “game industry wars” or whatever we are calling them now.

On a more serious note, I side with ECM when it comes to X1. I personally own a Wii and a 360 but I’m on my 2nd 360. I will not replace that when it dies and I have known an absurd amount of people that have gone through multiple units. It amazes me how easily people have seemed to have given MS a pass at releasing a truly shoddy piece of hardware. I’ve owned stuff by various game companies including ones that never made it anywhere (NUON as one example) and those have all worked out quite well without needing replacements or constant repairs. I get that any piece of hardware by any company is going to have problems and there will be lemons. Happens with arcades too. Just not at the scale that went on with the 360. I’m not going to just take MS or even Sony’s word on anything anymore, I’ll wait and see the actions. A lot of people have overlooked that Sony was wanting to do some similar ideas to the X1 but they were wiser in how they played the marketing game, and adapted quickly.

Beyond that there isn’t a whole lot that I’m seeing from next-gen game consoles that has me screaming to spend the money on them. WiiU looks like it will be solid come 2014 and a price drop, one or two games that look interesting for PS4 or X1 are hardly enough to justify $400/$500 for those consoles (let’s not forget the lack of backwards compatibility in terms of hardware and software which means spending money on all that stuff too, again). MS’s attitude towards BC has been another turn-off on them, not just the snide “only 5% of consumers care” crap but it wasn’t good on the 360 either. Of the couple dozen Xbox games I owned, only a fraction will work on the 360 which was always disappointing. As I already have a PC capable of handling games that will already run better that way than on the newest game console, I’m comfortable taking a wait-and-see approach on all of them and how they handle things after the initial launch period. Also – still not interested in Kinect or Eye-Toy or any of that camera stuff really. No killer apps I know of to make those products worth it.